


White on White

by FallacyFallacy



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Hand Kink, M/M, Medical Kink, Mission Fic, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-27
Updated: 2011-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-17 07:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallacyFallacy/pseuds/FallacyFallacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock gets injured and Kirk tends to his wounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White on White

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the March 'Paired Kinks' mini-challenge for Kink_Bingo for the square 'medical kink & hand fetish'. I know nothing about first aid, as should be obvious from this fic. I apologize if I've made any stupid mistakes!

“It looks like this'll have to be it.”

 

Spock, of course, looked utterly unmoved. “It will be acceptable.”

 

It damn well would not and he knew it. No matter what the aliens might believe about modern technology they had no right to steal the Federation representatives' first aid kits and refuse to return them, especially when Spock had just spent a good hour getting himself beat up trying to save them all from a wild beast terrorising the natives. At least they had the good grace to lend him some of their own medicine, but it was almost hilariously obsolete. Fuck, Jim had seen _stitches_ in that thing. He shuddered just to think of it.

 

However, he wouldn't be telling Spock anything new by voicing this. Right now, what he needed to do was help Spock, not stand around complaining.

 

With a sigh he sat down cross-legged in front of Spock. The Vulcan really did look worse for wear – cuts and bruises dotted his skin, the green seeping into the dark blue of his regulation uniform. His right eye was bruised and bloodied, kept tightly closed, and he was cradling his left hand awkwardly in his lap. Jim's heart lurched to see his friend hurt so badly just because of some stupid, defenceless aliens but he had to admit that Spock couldn't really have done anything else. The Vulcan always did have a ridiculous instinct to protect even complete strangers of a totally different species, to the extent that Jim sometimes worried that he placed far too low a value on his own life. If only Jim could have been there, rather than stuck playing diplomat, unaware of what was going on until it was too late...

 

Spock began to remove his shirt and Jim realized he had been staring. He shook his head, rummaging through the kit the aliens had given them. Spock was right, barely – it probably _would_ be adequate, but it would also probably hurt like hell until they could beam back to the ship. He wished Bones had come with them; even if he wasn't used to using this stuff he might be slightly more competent than Jim felt.

 

He turned back to Spock. He had taken off both his science blue overshirt and his black undershirt, his chest on full display. It was distracting, but for all the wrong reasons – Spock's injuries were even more obvious now that they weren't hidden by the torn-up clothing anymore. Grazes and scrapes trailing down the Vulcan's pale green skin, tracing a pattern that could almost have been beautiful had it not been created through such pain...

 

Jim unscrewed the lid of the bottle of water the aliens had provided, shifting closer to Spock. “This might feel a bit cold...”

 

Spock nodded. Jim looked him over, searching where to start. The face? It'd probably hurt more there. Should he work from the more painful areas to the least or vice versa?

 

In the end he decided starting at the face would be a good idea, if only because the wound to Spock's eye looked to be among the worst. He should probably tackle the places losing the most blood first, he decided.

 

“Here...” he murmured, pushing some of Spock's bangs out of the way, leaning in close. He could feel the Vulcan's breath against his cheek as he looked, fingers hovering over Spock's skin as he surveyed the extent of the damage. It was strange seeing Spock like this – normally he was so composed, his face so expressionless and perfectly calm, that to see it bruised and bloodied and imperfect like this was rather a shock. He looked so oddly vulnerable like this, as though having his skin stripped literally did remove his defences from him. While normally he was so impossible to touch, both emotionally and physically, right now he was absurdly fragile, weak to the slightest brush of Jim's finger...

 

Pushing away that line of thought, Jim put the bottle down, instead taking out a cold compress. He pressed it against Spock's eye, fingertips against his temple. A moment later Spock's hand came up to hold it there and Jim realized that he needn't have put it there himself in the first place. Spock wasn't an invalid, after all. Strange how quickly he was already thinking like that – as though he was supposed to take care of Spock completely, rather than just what he couldn't do himself.

 

Confused, he took up the bottle again. Where else was he most injured? Standing up to look at him from all sides, the answer was obvious – there was a large wound on Spock's back that required immediate attention. He crouched down before it, placing a hand elsewhere on Spock's back to steady himself; Spock stiffened slightly, but otherwise did not react. Trying to touch him as little as possible, Jim took up the bottle. “Okay, brace yourself.” A moment passed, and he poured some of the water on the wound. Spock obviously jumped, even as he tried to hide it. Jim frowned; even now, Spock was trying to control himself, even when he must be in pain. Well, it might not just be for Jim's benefit, though – maybe controlling his reaction to the pain helped him to control it?

 

He took up a cloth and damped it before pressing that against the injury as well. He dabbed around the wound, outlining it with the liquid. As strange as it sounded, it was almost like a work of art, in a way – using the appropriate materials and technique to achieve the desired effect, all against the canvas of Spock's skin.

 

He finished, but didn't put away the bottle yet. He would need to put a bandage on this wound, but before that he would need to clean all the other cuts that would be covered by the bandage. Luckily, they were all much shallower than that last wound, and Jim worked through them quickly, dabbing the the tell-tale greenness everywhere it was found. It was made more difficult by Spock's hair, which the injuries tended to pull at in a clearly painful way. Once he was done cleaning the wounds he went over them again with disinfectant; this was clearly much more painful, but still Spock stoically kept himself together throughout the entire time. Soon, he was done here.

 

“All right. I'll just get a bandage...” The material was extremely white, even compared to Spock's unusually pale skin. However, it was thick, and didn't show a hint of green from the outside when he began to wind it around Spock's waist. It was surprisingly difficult to put on – to wind it properly he needed to curl his arms under Spock's, passing it across his stomach. The movement was oddly rhythmic.

 

Once he was done he moved on, seeing to other wounds on Spock's head, arms, shoulders. He tried to tend to Spock's hand but before he could touch it Spock was standing up and removing his trousers so Jim could see to his legs. Jim shrugged and went along with it.

 

He wondered how Spock was feeling. He would be in pain, of course, but that was such a general statement that it didn't really do a very good job of describing actual sensations. There were so many different kinds of pain – sharp pain, dull aches, surface prickles, and deep-down agony. There was pain that made you dizzy, pain that made you nauseous, pain that made you feel weak and sleepy, and pain that made you unable to do anything but move. There was pain so bad you'd do anything to make it go away and pain that actually, paradoxically, felt very, very good. It was intensely subjective – one could not be certain that even another Human felt pain the same way one did, let alone a member of an entirely different species. Spock seemed to be more in control than a Human would be in the same circumstances, but was that because Vulcans felt pain less strongly than Humans or because they were better at controlling their reactions to it?

 

Jim liked to help people. It wasn't a sign of some total, self-denying selflessness. Nor was it just an excuse to serve his own interests. Helping other people made him feel happy. It made him feel wanted, meaningful, in control. After a life of near-nihilism, the sheer power of being able to so greatly affect other peoples' lives for the better was more humbling than anything he'd yet experienced in space. It wasn't about power, though, or controlling someone else – it was just about taking someone who was injured and needing help and giving it to them.

 

Spock had never struck him as the kind of person needing help. From the first time they had met he had seemed confident to the point of arrogance to him, cold and distant from anyone else. The events of the Narada had challenged those prejudgments but only somewhat. Although he had seen Spock upset over the death of his mother and comforted by Uhura's presence and angry over Jim's harsh words, they had still seemed like the exception, not the rule. Anyone in his place would have reacted the same. The fact that he had still been able to gather himself together and work with them all afterwards showed a level of discipline that few Humans would have been able to manage. In other words, he wasn't perfect, but any deficiencies he _had_ he was more than able to correct for himself.

 

But as he got to know Spock better, more and more it seemed to him that Spock was one of the most insecure people he knew. His apparent aloofness stemmed not from conceit but from awkwardness around other people, especially loud, emotional Humans. His reluctance to ask for help was due not to a loathing of admitting the competence of others but to his hesitance to bother others about something he could do himself. He worked so hard not because he thought he was better than anybody else but because he didn't have much else to do with himself. He was such an uncomfortable person – uncomfortable with interaction, uncomfortable with vulnerability, uncomfortable even in his own half-human body. He was cold not because he felt no emotions, but because his emotions were so often those which it was faux pas to express openly even for Humans.

 

It amazed him, because Spock was one of the greatest people he knew. Incredibly intelligent even for a Vulcan, healthy to an extent that could only be attributed to real discipline, sharply beautiful in a way obvious to anyone who saw him, and overall one of the kindest people Jim knew. Far from the unfeeling computer McCoy always claimed he was, Jim was certain that Spock never gave him any professional advice for which he had not ruthlessly calculated all possible moral consequences. Even when off-duty there was a self-sacrificing lilt to his behaviour that trod the line between kindness and stupidity. He was flawed, yes – everyone was – but when it came to Spock, his good qualities were arranged in such a way that Jim just didn't care about the bad ones the vast majority of the time. Things that would have been irritating as hell from someone else were okay or even amusing from Spock because...well, because he knew him.

 

And that fact surprised him more than anyone else. Of all the people Spock had chosen to open up to he had chosen Jim, who was reckless and thoughtless and clumsy as fuck when it came to actual people and actual emotion. He still didn't understand it. However, he was grateful. He and Spock hadn't known each other very long yet, but already he could tell that the Vulcan would end up being one of the most influential people in his life.

 

So seeing Spock like this, battered and torn and open before him, more naked than he had ever seen him...it was beautiful. Not because Spock was hurt, but because Jim could see him like this, could help him feel better. It was a stupid thing to think and Jim berated himself for it but it was the truth – Jim really did see this as beautiful.

 

He finished Spock's legs and stood back. Spock had probably held the compress to his eye long enough so he returned to the kit for something to put over it. Luck was on his side; finding an eyepatch, he took it, returning to Spock. Dutifully, the Vulcan removed the compress. The wound looked worse than he remembered it and Jim bit his lip. The skin was discoloured and green-blue around the eye, blood caked on his cheek and around the bandage he wore on his head above it. He resisted the urge to touch it for himself and reached over, fitting the patch around his forehead and cheeks and over his eye. Spock reached up his right hand to help straighten it and their fingers brushed for a moment; Spock jerked his hand away, returning it to curl over his left hand.

 

Jim stood back, seeing the whole picture. Bandages wound around Spock's stomach, head, bicep, and leg. Square ones dotted his body – his cheek, his chest, his forearm. The blood had been cleaned from his body but bruises produced bright colors that contrasted against the white of the bandages. He looked better than before, cleaner, healthier, but Jim still found it difficult to quell within him the urge to do whatever he could to help.

 

There was still one more thing, though. From the way Spock had been acting earlier it was obvious that, for whatever reason, he didn't want Jim to touch his hands. It probably wasn't because of pain – in that case, he would almost certainly have tried to hide his reaction, while Jim had gotten the impression that Spock had been deliberately trying to steer Jim away from his hands without outright saying anything. However, there really wasn't any reason to avoid it anymore, so he crouched down again, reaching for the Vulcan's left hand.

 

At first it seemed as though Spock would refuse him, but he, too, seemed to realize the inevitability of their position and reluctantly raised his hand. Trying to make this as unawkward as possible, Jim held his wrist, turning it lightly so he could see the damage. It wasn't as bad as he had feared – there were no deep cuts, and Spock was able to move his fingers so it didn't seem like anything was broken. However, the back was riddled with shallow cuts and the palm was rubbed raw, inflamed and bright green. It looked painful, but not as much as Spock had been implying with his behaviour; probably this was different for the same reason he had not wanted Jim to touch his hand.

 

But, well, there was no choice, now. He took the bottle of water again, pouring it over the back of his hand. Spock squirmed and Jim paused, but when the Vulcan nodded he continued. After that he took up the cloth and tried his best to clean the cuts without pressing too painfully against them. This was more fiddly work than just drawing it across Spock's chest – he had to wash the back, the knuckle, each individual finger along the length and over the top, the flesh and heel of the palm, the bony back of the wrist and the sensitive underside. Throughout all of this Spock was unusually responsive, especially when Jim dabbed at the tips of his fingers. It was clear that his hands were quite sensitive, although it took Jim a while to remember why. He had only ever seen Uhura and Spock kiss the Human way so he'd never had reason to think of it until now, but while he worked an old Academy lecture was coming back to him – Vulcans kissed with their hands.

 

Somehow, the idea made him feel even more protective. Not only was Spock having to go through the pain of his injuries and the humiliation of having to have Jim take care of him but he was also having to deal with the discomfort of being so intimately close to someone he wasn't involved with. It must be especially bad for a Vulcan given how conservative they seemed to be with their relationships and even more so for Spock who had been quite wary about romance since his break-up with Uhura.

 

In the end, though, Spock's health outweighed his discomfort and Jim finished cleaning his wounds. Again, he repeated his movements with the disinfectant, being even more careful this time to work slowly and precisely so as to hurt Spock as little as possible. Halfway through he realized that he had started to hold Spock's hand instead of his wrist but Spock hadn't objected so he didn't shift. Unconsciously, he focused on the details – touch the bud here, in the skin between his thumb and forefinger, or here, between his pinky and ring finger. Even with the scars Spock had beautiful hands – long-fingered and pale, with trimmed fingernails slightly too pointed to be human. The veins under his wrist were orange rather than blue, and if he looked closely he could see just a hint of that hue on the back of his hand beneath his bruises.

 

Soon he was done, but he didn't feel quite finished yet. Spock's palm was still quite inflamed and clearly uncomfortable but it wasn't open. He could just put the bandage on now, but if there was something he could do to make Spock feel better he would.

 

There was another bottle in the kit – lotion. If nothing else, it might help to cool down his skin; even from the brief touches Jim had made there his palm had felt extremely warm, even for a Vulcan.

 

Jim glanced up at Spock, holding up the bottle. Spock looked at him for a few moments with an expression that Jim couldn't understand. He was just about to backtrack and put the bottle down again when Spock nodded. A shiver ran down Jim's spine at Spock's gaze – despite the Vulcan's physical vulnerability, all of a sudden it felt like it was Spock who was seeing right through Jim. But then Spock turned away and Jim shook his head, trying to shake off the feeling as he opened the bottle.

 

He poured it into his own hand first, rubbing it to warm it up. The lotion was slick and made an odd slapping sound between his hands. It reminded him of something he really didn't want to be thinking about at the moment, especially given what he was about to do with Spock's hands.

 

He began softly, pressing the lotion into Spock's palm, spreading it around and rubbing it in with a back and forth motion with his fingertips. He pressed it into the top part of Spock's palm, then between the fingers, then down the sides. He swirled it over the heel of his thumb, using his own thumb to move it. Then he grew more firm, as though he were massaging Spock's hand, pressing circles into his greened skin until there was no more evidence of the lotion than a faint oily glean to his skin.

 

He could have stopped then – Spock's palm was by far the worst affected there – but without thinking he continued. His fingers were mostly clean so he continued down them, using three fingers and a thumb to encircle one and drag the lotion down to the tip. There he pressed it between his thumb and forefinger, swirling them around until it was covered. He continued this for each finger and his thumb, avoiding the open areas.

 

That done, Jim took out a final bandage. Holding Spock's hand out gently with his fingers he pressed the soft, firm material into his palm, winding it around with the same almost comfortingly repetitive movement he had done several times earlier. When he had cut and tucked it, he saw to the other wounds, meticulously applying a plaster to every cut area.

 

Finally, he was done. For a few seconds he continued to hold Spock's hand pointlessly, somewhat awkwardly. Remembering why he had been so reluctant to touch Spock's hand at first he hastily let go. Fuck, he'd completely forgotten about that. He'd probably made things so awkward for Spock, practically making out with him for so long... But then, he hadn't said anything, had he...

 

Jim cleared his throat, suddenly aware of the silence. At first he had made a rough effort to keep talking but so soon that had been abandoned completely in favor of devoting all his attention to cleaning Spock up. There had been something comfortable about the silence then, he realized – there had been nothing either of them had needed or wanted to say; they had been happy to sit back and let what happened happened. Now that his brain was working again all of this ease had disappeared to be replaced by an unusually tense quiet.

 

“So, uh, that's that, I guess,” he said.

 

Spock nodded. “It seems so.” Jim resisted the urge to grimace; if Spock was reduced to such obvious statements clearly something must be wrong.

 

But, really, why was something wrong, anyway? All he'd done was clean his friend's injuries. And, sure, he might have had to do something he normally wouldn't on the way, but there was no reason why they had to be weird about it. It had all been strictly business, after all – just what was necessary to deal with Spock's injuries. Hadn't it?

 

His stomach felt heavy and he felt oddly apprehensive, as though he subconsciously knew something that he was dreading having to consciously admit. But there was no reason to phrase such an emotion like that; why had he done that?

 

Jim stood up, increasingly unnerved by the entire situation. “Well, in that case, I should probably go back to the King and do damage-control.” Was it just him or was he speaking unusually loudly? “We should be fine, and really they should be grateful to us for you helping them out, but just in case.”

 

“That sounds logical,” Spock said and Jim had to smile; there was just something so familiar about that word from Spock's mouth that he felt some of his doubts eased. “I will remain here and attempt to calibrate the communicator to allow us contact with the Enterprise.”

 

“Sounds good. I'll be back soon.” He walked to the door but hesitated in the doorway. Was there something else he had to say? Of course not, he decided, shaking his head. He walked away without a second glance.


End file.
